The day Brian Wilson wrote

I went to a party last Saturday, just a casual affair. I wasn’t expecting to find anyone I knew, it was another typical weekend Venice Beach party. Half naked, beautiful people getting stoned and avoiding bonding as much as possible.

I’ve been to a few of these aimlessly fun soirées since I moved here four months ago. My sculpture teacher needed a house sitter while she was in Italy, and without a moments hesitation, I leapt at the offer.

An opportunity to become a Venice Beach artisan was the 90’s equivalent of a NY Soho artists community and the most interesting place to be. I felt every bit a 90’s liberated woman.

I turned the main floor of the Pensione styled Villa into an art gallery to show and hopefully sell my own work. Unfortunately beach dwellers had little propensity toward anything as permanent as sculpture. Only the smaller more whimsical pieces sold.

Fortunately Beatrice, the owner was on a year’s teaching sojourn so I had very little overhead. It was just me. On the rare occasion something did sell, I’d run out and buy groceries. Usually bread, milk cereal and a can of tuna. For extra cash I worked part time on a friends houseboat, scraping, painting, varnishing doing the bright work. It was the perfect life for an artist.

It was a gorgeous June day the kind they write songs about, sunny but not too hot, life at the beach was every hip persons dream. The Beach Boys got it right when they introduced the world to an ideal life full of carefree fun and living in perfect harmony. This was one of those days.

I wasn’t sure where today’s party was, I just knew it was on the strand.

I took a few business cards and stuffed them in my newly imported French fanny pack, the current rage in beach attire, a nice compliment to my white pedal pushers. I was stylin*. I grabbed the six pack of beer I’d spent my grocery allowance on and joined the moving throng of skaters, walkers, eaters, bikers, happy hordes of sun worshipers snaking their way to and from on both sides of the boardwalk.

As I slipped into the parade, I spotted a smart looking couple who also appeared to be party hunters, or maybe it was the bottle of Cabernet, clutched in his hand that gave it away.

After three or four blocks, faint melodic sounds from a door opened to the ocean, ah...a familiar favorite, ‘Darlin’, I started to hum the closer I came. Getting into a festive mood. The noise from the party goers and streams of marauding people, drowned out the heavenly harmonics so identifiable to Brian‘s songs, my latest passion.

I had recently become obsessed with his iconic music after he and the Beach Boys separated. Somehow it resonated differently. I secretly wished the crowd would quiet down, but...it was a party--I could curl up and listen to Brian anytime.

There were at least 40 people squeezed into what appeared to be a one room studio house with sliding glass doors open to the beach.

The smell and sounds of the ocean added to the decidedly festive ambiance. There was an overall sense of conviviality, audible joy and the distinct aroma of weed and suntan lotion.

The kitchenette was loaded with snacks, beer, sodas and wine. Major priorities when throwing a beach party. Close and intimate. Lots of booze, Classy music. Curious, I wanted to meet the hosts.

I looked around for a familiar face, and spotted one or two from my afternoon walks, fellow travelers, appreciating the sunset. Nodding acquaintances, but never met. I caught the eye of a tall slender, slightly graying brunette and scrunched my way through a wall of sun warmed bodies closer to ask if she could point out our hosts?

She extended her forefinger and pointed it twice toward the ceiling. Craftily hidden behind the kitchenette was a staircase leading to an upstairs. I poked my head around trying to get a glimpse of the gorgeous view that captivated our hosts from their own party, but something about the mischievous twinkle in her eye made me catch on or maybe it was her tight lips stretched across a telling grin. Kudos! Nothing like a little afternoon delight, lolling around naked under the suns rays, with the ocean view stretching to infinity. I was more than a little envious.

I held up my six pack of Guinness and offered her one. “Hi, I see you on the bike path sometimes, My name is Ronnie.”

“Hi, Ronnie, it was you that opened the new gallery on the boardwalk, what’s the name? Quintessentials? I reached in my fanny pack for a card and handed it to her.

”Actually it’s Quaint Essentials, yes I’m house sitting for the owner who is also a sculptor. She’s in Pietrasanta, Italy for another seven months, I know...poor me right? She’s teaching the Italian technique of marble carving to a group of wealthy Americans aspiring to carve some meaning into their bored lives.”

“It’s good to meet you face to face, Martha Webster I have a house two streets over. I’ve been meaning to stop in but always seem to be on my way somewhere.”

I sat the six pack of beer on a table next to me in back of a couch packed and hung over at the edges with people, the music suddenly cranked up for the perfect Beach Boy song fitting the occasion ‘Kokomo’. A squeal of delight from a small group singing along began moving in jerky comical gyrations. So carefree and unburdened.

I finished my beer and returned the bottle to its carrier and discovered the remaining four bottles were gone.

Rats! That didn’t take long...wistfully thinking...that was supposed to be next weeks tuna sandwich. Will I ever learn? I moseyed over to the kitchen for another beer. Pining over my sacrificed can of tuna. Funny how something so unimportant can sometimes loom so large.

The mood was gay, comfortably simple, it hadn’t taken long for the Vietnam War to fade into a dim unpleasant memory! Or the paranoia so rampant in the 50’s, when the security of the middle class was eroding away. Reagan’s trickle down tax cuts were having a reverse effect. Things were looking bleak.

America deserved some relief, the sixties brought about a gayer much happier time thanks to bands like The Beach Boys and Beatles’s influence, bringing smiles and new dreams, however short lived until Vietnam took our healthy young men and changed a whole generation. The happiness this music brought was life-affirming. It was Gods gift..and in my mind Brian Wilson is still gifting it to future generatīons.

What the heck it’s a beautiful day and right now I shouldn’t be so glum. Not while ‘I get around’ was showering positive vibrations everywhere. Only on days like today, with Brian sharing the proof of Gods existence, was it rejuvenating. The dark side now almost forgivable.

I was eager to share my priceless visions and original thoughts and looked around the room for an interesting person to strike up a conversation. I selected an attractive man to engage and share my Socratic words.

I began my dialogue, his wholesome tanned face full on mine for at least a thirty-two second attention span then looked past my shoulder imagining a trip to Molokai in the Spring or the phone bill he forgot to mail. His black tee shirt, a size too small prophesied ‘Here Today--Gone To Maui’

I couldn’t help thinking back to the time of Stonehenge, how in pagan society, separation was an illusion when miracles and magic made a different world but now in a modern pious society, worlds of difference mark our boundaries.

His blond muscles auto-flexed as a long legged Lycra spandexed redhead with big tits passed--making her way to the kitchen--carrying in her hand an empty Guinness bottle. Double ouch!

I pretend to ignore it as I rambled on in ecstasy, verbally relieving myself, l gazed into his vacant blue eyes past an absent mind hoping to reach the part of him sacred not human and found it too had departed. OK...that did it, message received. “Later dude! Nice chat.“And he made a beeline for big tits. “Yeah”

I followed, looking to get a fresh beer. The sink was full of ice, beer and sodas. I pulled out a Bud Lite. An ongoing conversation caught my attention. There was a large basket of freshly picked pears on the kitchen Island next to the chips, snacks and cookies.

The conversation went on about how Jennifer--I guessed the hostess-- was the daughter of a successful Pear Farmer north of San Fernando Valley. The petite blond smiled “its been in the family for six generations, they grow about five or six varieties, ” she adjusted the straps on her bikini top. “They own 120 acres, and sell all over the US--I guess that's how she can afford this great house.” Her friend chimed in with, “Imagine--all this from pear trees.”

I put the Bud back in the sink and took a ripe pear from the basket instead. Oh ‘M God. Never have I tasted anything so delicious. Juicy, ripe and so sweet. I gobbled it down completely ignoring my gross sloppy appearance to the glareing onlookers. Oblivious, I took a second pear and tucked it in my oh-so-handy fanny pack for later. A justified substitute for the sacrificed can of tuna.

The clammer of bare feet stomping down the stairs, brought shouts of ‘Hi there’ and ‘there you are’ as the flushed excited faces of our hosts appeared, blond, glistening and classically California Girl beautiful.

It gave new energy to the party.

“Who wants to go Grunion Hunting? We’ve got buckets in the shed and they start running at midnight. But we’ve got a few hours yet, time for a swim and pizzas on the way while we wait. Be sure to help yourselves to some pears from my Dad’s Orchard, they're a rare treat.” Cheers and loud jabbering as the hosts passed a basket around to collect money for the pizzas. It was an atmosphere of jubilation and camaraderie. Very infectious. It felt like the party was just getting started.

Supposedly Mid June was the best time for Grunions to spawn, come ashore, and lay their eggs in the sand. It only lasts about three hours, and I was told Grunion make delicious eating. This beach is supposedly one of the best places on the California coastline to catch them. And tonight was a full moon. Hard to improve on that. I half way expected a camera crew standing by filming this very excellent movie.

It felt like a new chapter in my summer of 1990 was being written.

The 1980’s was the last decade we were allowed our blind innocence. Something to treasure and a time to look back on, before America’s rude awakening of 9/11 when everything changed. When whatever solidarity existed right here right now was never to return. And there was even a second bigger, uglier war in Iraq looming on the horizon.

But the beauty of this day overwhelmed and erased the darkest cloud my Libra mind could conjure, it portended we’d survive to have many many more just like it. after all we are a resilient nation. This was America - God’s favorite. This completely perfect day was a song Brian Wilson himself could have written.

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Please enjoy Brian’s most recent album see if you don't agree with me.

No Pier Pressure